Drak's Raising

[Myth]

Drak sat perched on the edge of the bed. His time would come soon. They hadn’t sent for him to return from the good ship Merry Pauper to have him sit around looking pretty. It is just a matter of time now…

 

Almost as if his thoughts had summoned the knock, a quick rap on his door sounded. Drak seized the Power as a precaution and opened the door without moving. “It is time?” he asked the tongue-less messenger, the same one who had escorted him both to and from the pirate ship. With a curt nod the mute stepped back in the hall, and Drak rose and followed.

 

The young channeler was as ready as he was going to be, and he had dressed immaculately, but appropriately, for the trials ahead. You want to look your best on a day such as this, he thought mockingly. Either for my success… or for my funeral. He wasn’t certain of the details of the coming test, but he knew if he failed he’d never leave the room alive.

 

He followed his guide through the many twists and turns of the Fortress, until they came to a point he had passed many times. But this time a door was where one had never been. Truly, there were more mysteries in the Fortress than a lifetime could solve, but now was not the time to ponder this one. Steeling himself, he walked through the door the guide held open and entered a large chamber. The door clicking shut behind him signaled closure in more ways than one.

 

My life begins now.

 

He scanned the gathered assembly like a mountain cat meeting a pack of wolves, and he approached the nine seated Dreadlords and Dreadladies with proper reverence on such a solemn, and dangerous, occasion. He came to a halt far enough way for him to keep all nine in view without turning his head and nodded respectfully. Then he waited.

 

A few long moments ticked by with agonizing slowness, then the man in the middle motioned with a hand, and the last two seated on each end of the semi-circle stood and approached him. The two Dreadlords and two Dreadladies positioned themselves around him at the four cardinal points, then stood silent.

 

A Dreadlady to the left of center spoke, her words shattering the eerie silence of the chamber. “You know why you are here?” He nodded. “Then begin.” At her final words, the air around him crackled with energy, as the four masters seized the Power and attacked him.

 

He knew he was in for it then. They were going to kill him. He had little chance to survive four masters at one time, but he would be damned if he gave up without a fight. Seizing the Source, he lunged away from the center of the quartet, sliding on his side as he tried to counter their flanking, slicing the weaves of the two males as he did so just before Fire consumed him. The women would be more difficult to defend against, because he couldn’t see their weaves, so he attempted to put them on the defensive. His natural affinity to Earth and Fire made basic weaves as simple as breathing, and he launched stone after stone towards them. They weren’t likely to harm, but they were a threat that had to be guarded against, and he hoped it would be enough to momentarily distract them.

 

A club of Air caught him flat across his back as he rolled to his feet, but it was the only blow he felt from the women. His desperate counter-attack had worked for the moment. As he rose, he formed a thick wall of stone between him and the four death dealers, the floor of the chamber rumbling with his effort, and huge chunks of debris flew through the air as the two men hurled lighting bolts at him.

 

Knocked off his feet but otherwise unharmed thanks to his hastily woven wall, except for a ringing in his ears, he continued hurling stones at the two women. But another club of air smashed him square in the face, one cracked painfully against his side, and another hit his stomach, proving his ploy had been countered. He smothered the fire that singed his coat, and he severed the weave that had sent it, as he dove back behind his wall. Looking to the ceiling, he lashed out with Fire and Earth and brought huge chunks plummeting down onto his tormentors just as he got caught behind the ear with another club of Air. Just as the world went spinning and his jacket caught fire again, a commanding word brought the assault to a halt.

 

“ENOUGH!”

 

Gasping for breath, Drak tried to compose himself. His jacket was a smoking, blood-soaked ruin, and if he wasn’t mistaken he had a broken nose, at least one broken rib, and a slight concussion. But he suspected things weren’t over yet, so he gulped in air and tried to ready several weaves for whatever came next. Seeing the four others dusty and somewhat the worse for wear didn’t make him as happy as he would’ve thought. This was all about survival, and his life still hung in the balance.

 

“AGAIN.”

 

The word had hardly begun when Drak lashed out. Lightning rained down toward his adversaries, and he quickly wove a shield above himself as lightning stabbed toward him, as well. Punching the ground, he sent a shockwave of Fire and Earth toward the four masters. They were flung off their feet, but not before they struck out with Fire and Air of their own sending him sprawling and wracked with pain. Inside the Void he knew it, but for now his feelings were safely tucked away outside. Spirit sliced his next weaves, and the recoil stunned him briefly. He barely managed to dive behind his Earthen wall as fireballs came hurling toward him, their explosions sending gouts of dust and rubble high into the air.

 

On the verge of exhaustion, and with black flecks crossing his vision, Perhaps the concussion wasn’t so mild after all, Drak knew the end was near. He pulled in all the Power he could hold, the exquisite pleasure turning to pain as he reached his breaking point. Just as he was about to unleash enough devastation to kill everyone in the room, including himself, the voice rang out again.

 

“ENOUGH!”

 

Drak staggered to his feet, his body blood-smeared and battered, his mind utterly exhausted. Slow plumes of smoke rose from his formerly fine jacket and from his hair, and rivers of sweat coursed through beds of grit and dust that caked his body and face.

 

The four other combatants joined their fellows, although in various states of disrepair and injury. At least I gave as good as I got. he thought grimly. But was it enough?

 

After a brief conference that made nary a sound, They have woven against me overhearing, the Dreadlord in the middle rose to his feet and spoke. His soft words rang out clearly despite the still-occasional clatter of falling stone from the devastation strewn about the room and the ringing in Drak’s ears.

 

“You have proven yourself worthy of the title Dreadlord. You may go, and henceforth know what you are. On the morrow, you will pay obeisance to the Great Lord himself.”

 

Walking, no limping; Staggering back to his room, Drak pondered the results of the day’s testing. Inside he didn’t feel any different. Shouldn’t there be some change, something momentous that declared “You are now special!”?

 

If so, he missed out on it. And now that he no longer held on to the Source, his body was screaming in agony, cursing his mother for giving his father that first kiss if it led to such a stupid boy. Plopping down on the edge of his bed, he kicked off his boots, what was left of them, shrugged out of his coat and shirt, what was left of them, and lay back with a barely stifled groan. He hoped he would feel better in the morning.

 

*************************************************

 

Drak rose the next morning weary, aching, but exultant. He was that much closer to what he wanted. He had just finished dressing when a knock at the door sounded.

 

“Enter.”

 

The tongue-less man entered and waited. Silent as death, the ever-present mistress of these halls. Drak nodded, and followed without a word. It was time for him to visit the slopes of Shayol Ghul and make his Oaths. He journeyed to the depths of the Fortress where once again he entered a room with a hole torn in space.

 

He stepped through and into a realm as close to a waking nightmare as he ever cared to see. Standing there waiting for him was the man who had issued the verdict after the test. “Welcome to Shayol Ghul. Do not seize the Power here. Not only would it burn you to a cinder, the Great Lord wouldn’t take kindly to it. Now follow me.”

 

Drak crossed a frozen wasteland, despite the steam rising from hundreds of cracks in the ground that gave testimony to underground volcanic activity. In the distance, he could hear the regular clank of steel on steel as the swords of the Eyeless were forged. The occasional scream of the dying was also a part of the forging.

 

He entered a cave that looked more like a mouth of a great beast, and began his descent into the depths. Jagged rocks jutted down from above, nearly grazing his head as he walked. His guide, only a step or two in front of him and nearly a pace shorter, also barely cleared the stalactites that looked like stone teeth. Reality was different here, apparently. It could somehow be molded.

 

Drak exited the tunnel and entered a vast cavern. Somehow the roof was much higher than the mountain he had entered, and the clouds broiling in the sky were unlike anything he had ever seen. They were impossible.

 

All his thoughts were lost when a voice shouted inside his head. The Great Lord’s presence shoved everything else aside. Falling to his knees, he spoke the words that were the reason for this journey into hell.

 

“I am yours, Great Lord, body and soul.”

 

With the simple statement, the taint on saidin was removed and the chains that bound his soul were tightened…